Well planning is a complex, multidisciplinary process that requires collaboration and frequent data exchanges between operators and service companies. Traditional methods, such as email and document sharing, are inefficient, error-prone, and can lead to missed opportunities for design optimization. This project aimed to modernize and streamline the well planning process by enabling seamless digital collaboration between Equinor and SLB.
This groundbreaking project, piloted on the Breidablikk field in early 2024, delivered a highly optimized workflow for cross-organizational well planning teams, successfully supporting both standalone and multilateral wells.
By enabling seamless bi-directional data transfer, event-based orchestration, and digital quality control (QC), the solution significantly reduced planning time, optimized resource use, and fostered a more collaborative environment—allowing design changes to be accommodated later in the cycle and automatically propagated to all stakeholders. Equinor’s planning and reporting system, Wellcom, integrates cross-domain data such as wellbores, trajectories, subsurface pressures, formation tops, and wellbore geometries. DrillPlan solutions, meanwhile, is a cloud-native well-planning tool that offers a suite of engineering simulations and automated design validations. Although both systems support comprehensive RESTful APIs, seamless integration required more than technical connectivity. To bridge this gap, a standalone connector was developed—a web application that extracts contextual planning data from Wellcom, transforms and restructures it, and publishes it to DrillPlan solutions. This enables immediate continuation of detailed design tasks, including BHA design, fluid, and cement programs, and their validation through automated engineering analysis. Customized reports are then generated and sent back via the connector to Wellcom, completing a robust, interoperable, and efficient planning loop.
